team

Prof Peter Head CBE FREng FRSA

Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Peter is a champion of sustainable development. He established the Ecological Sequestration Trust in 2011. He advocates that changing the way we invest public and private money in the built environment could be made very much more effective if the public and private sectors adopt sustainable development principles.

Peter is a civil and structural engineer who has become a recognised world leader in major bridges (he received an OBE for successfully delivering the Second Severn Crossing as Government Agent), advanced composite technology and now in sustainable development in cities and regions. He has won many awards for his work including the Award of Merit of IABSE, the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Silver Medal and the Prince Philip Award for Polymers in the Service of Mankind.

He joined Arup in 2004 to create and lead their planning and integrated urbanism team which by 2011 had doubled in size. He directed work on the Dongtan Eco City Planning project which was voted by Chinese developers in 2005 as the most influential development project in China.

In July 2008 he was awarded an honorary doctorate in engineering at Bristol University, where he is a visiting Professor in Sustainable Systems Engineering.

In May 2011 he was appointed as a visiting professor in eco-cities at Westminster University. In 2009 he was awarded the Sir Frank Whittle medal of the Royal Academy of Engineering for a lifetime contribution to the well-being of the nation through environmental innovation.

In 2008 he was named by the Guardian Newspaper as one of 50 people that could ‘save the planet’.

He was cited by Time magazine in 2008 as one of 30 global eco-heroes and has been one of CNN’s Principle Voices.

In 2011 he was awarded the CBE in the New Year’s Honours List for services to Civil Engineering and the Environment.

Dr Graham Hillier CEng, FIMMM, FRSA

Research Director

Graham has a wide-ranging business background including recycling operations, new product development, business development and low carbon energy.

He was Director of Strategy and Planning for ICI’s Petrochemicals, Plastics and Fertilizers Business before working for Corus as Construction Director, where he was responsible for a global programme in sustainable urban design and construction.

Graham is also a Director at the Centre for Process Innovation, where he is responsible for Strategy and Futures. His role is to develop strategy on developing technologies to support the efficient use and reuse of increasingly scare natural resources.

Graham is a Visiting Professor in the Department of the Built Environment at the University of Salford and is Chair of Redcar & Cleveland Further Education College.

Alastair Kennedy, MEng, FCA

Finance Director

Following a Masters Degree in Engineering at Nottingham University, Alastair joined Ernst and Young in London, qualifying as a Chartered Accountant in 1990. In 1991 he moved to Australia, working initially for a diversified industrial company, Howard Smith Ltd, later becoming Group Accountant at Pioneer International Ltd in Sydney.

On returning to the UK in 2007, Alastair first worked as Pioneer’s ERP Project Team Leader, and then as European Finance Manager in London, with particular responsibility for strategy, business development and analysis of European reporting and forecasting.

In 2000 Alastair became Finance Director for the UK Studio of Electronic Arts, the world’s leading developer and publisher of interactive entertainment software. During these four years, he managed a successful acquisition and integration exercise, established effective operational and financial processes in a rapidly growing business, implementing data warehousing, redesigning joint venture appraisal processes and improving cash flow forecasting.

Since 2004 Alastair has worked on a portfolio basis as a Finance Director and advisor to SMEs.

Christoph Graf von Waldersee

Regional Investments Director

Christoph Waldersee is a multilateral development finance specialist. He is a former executive of the German Government development investment bank DEG, part of German development bank KfW. Later he was leading the biggest ever EU environmental project in China, including introducing the rehabilitated area to potential infrastructure management and investment companies.

For over 25 years Christoph has been working with governments and private institutions in Asia as in other parts of the world working on sustainable urban development, structuring it in regard to its finance and investment, supporting and financing a resilient ecological, economic and social development. He has facilitated in many regions the creation, upgrading and finance of public infrastructure with a particular focus on its economic viability, its resource efficiency and the overall social acceptance of the urban development process.

Stephen Passmore FRSA MSc BSc(Hons)

Technology Director

Stephen is responsible for coordinating the development and deployment of resilience.io. resilience.io is an integrated, open-source platform for collaborative, low-carbon, city-region planning, investment and development.

With over 15 years professional experience in the sustainable energy and built environment sectors, and roles with E.on, Change Agents and most recently the Energy Saving Trust Stephen brings a passion and drive to achieve more sustainable development pathways.

Stephen specialises in the successful delivery of complex, multi-agency programmes in the field of sustainable energy and buildings. He has led the delivery of the TSBs Retrofit for the Future programme – proving the performance of low-carbon retrofits across the UK and led the Technical Housing programme for DECC – supporting UK industry in achieving low-carbon buildings.

During this time he also led strategic and organisational development initiatives. Stephen is an expert in building retrofits and smart meters and sustainable energy systems and has completed an MSc in Sustainable Urbanism from the Bartlett school, University College London.

Stephen was chosen as one of 50 rising sustainability stars in the built environment by Building Magazine in 2014 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Andre Head FRSA MA BEng(Hons) DIS

Experiences Director

Andre has been responsible for the experience people have of The Trust and resilience.io as organisations and products full time since the beginning of 2015 and leads the development of the user interfaces of the software applications. As a creative technologist, he also manages the tools we use to collaborate with each other and our partners worldwide.

Educated as an engineer and designer of products and manufacturing processes, Andre has over 15 years experience working in communications. He uses the technologies that have become available and has created experiences for the customers of corporate brands including Apple, O2, IKEA, Land Rover and KPMG and charities including Macmillan and for the previous three years, part time with the Trust as a volunteer. He has worked at advertising agencies including M&C Saatchi, LIDA and archibald ingall stretton…

Andre has won DMA awards for the creative use of technology and specialises in creating intuitive interfaces between people and devices by marrying technical, creative and human factors.

Philipp Ulbrich MIED MSc BSc(Hons)

Development Researcher

Philipp has a background in economic development and business (BSc Hons. Management, Warwick Business School; MSc Local Economic Development, London School of Economics) and is part of the third EPSRC funded cohort of MPhil/PhD students at the Warwick Institute for the Science of Cities (2016/2020). He has worked in urban and regional development and infrastructure projects in the UK and Latin America as well as foreign direct investment with national and municipal governments in Europe and Canada.

During his work with the Overseas Development Institute on a project for Costa Rica’s government to realign the country’s trajectory along green growth lines he identified the links between transport infrastructure investment priorities, housing and environmental performance. In collaboration with the Mexican government he was also involved in the development of economic strategies for four special economic zones in the south of the country. These experiences led him to develop a particular interest and expertise in diversification and transition towards sustainable development in resource based economies and the holistic and interrelated nature of urban and regional development. His work with TEST and his role as Mphil/PhD researcher is focusing on supporting resilience.io’s readiness for global roll-out.